Breaking the chains, winning the games, and saving Western Civilization.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

One-Minute Writer's Workshop: sex in SF/F

For those of you who are larval SF authors, I am pleased to offer the Alpha Game One-Minute Writer's Workshop on how to write intersexual relations in science fiction and fantasy.

1. Determine if you a Male author or a Female Author.

2a. If you are a Male author, the female character should surprise the male protagonist by impaling herself on his sexual organ for no apparent reason. The male protagonist should duly indicate his humble gratitude and undying loyalty to said female character for the rest of the novel, or, in the case of multiple books, series.

2b. If you are a Female author, the female protagonist should rapidly attract the undivided attention of two handsome alpha males with oversized genitalia who are nevertheless different in some nominal manner. She should have ecstatic sex with both of them, separately, with absolutely no consequences to her or anyone else. Due to her inexplicable, but supremely attractive qualities, her inability to choose between her two lovers neither results in any negative consequences beyond some minor emotional drama nor causes either of them to move on to other women. The female protagonist should duly indicate her agony over being unable to decide between the two men while alternately having sex with both of them for the rest of the novel, or, in the case of multiple books, the series.

3. Publish and profit!

Do not worry that the intersexual relations described in your novel(s) bear no similarities to any actual human romantic relations in recorded history. This is science fiction, after all, and per Dirty Uncle Hugo, your prime literary directive is to portray the world as you think it ought to be.

40 comments:

JamesV
said...

I remember the epiphany I had when I started to learn about game and pick up techniques. A common theme was that you had to be willing to make the first move and face rejection. Having been indoctrinated with gamma mentality this was a serious game changer for me.

It was then that I realized that in almost every movie I've seen in my life the girl made the first move and the guy's reaction was surprise/thankfulness. And in movies where the guy makes the first move he is usually portrayed as a player or cad.

I didn't realize how how of synch the portrayal of the socio-sexual in movies was with reality. It was amazing to me how being willing to make the first move completely revolutionized my dating life. I think my wife is tired of me yelling bullshit at the TV whenever one of these unrealistic scenes plays.

All's fair in love and war. Perhaps another minute (or 45 seconds) could be added to whatever fighting - hand to hand, swords, guns, lasers, nuclear city disintegrators - is done, though it might be possible to have something more realistic in scifi or fantasy than westerns or the action adventure movies.

You know, where the 120 pound female protagonist slaughters five over 6 foot muscled, armored, well trained elite guards who are walking armories. Be sure to include the scene where she grabs the crossbow bolt headed for her chest with two fingers.

Of course Christians and the Bible are some of the few that see the world as it really ought to be (through the lens of natural law). The reason the world is not as it ought to be is because we, ourselves, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, are bland and dim. Hence the feminized churches. The pastors at least think it is better to snuff out one candle than to let it expose what is hidden the darkness. That they can live wounded lives as long as no one rubs salt into them.

As a Christian who enjoys science fiction, the gratuitous sex in so many books has always been frustrating. There are many otherwise-good books that I will not be giving to my children to read because the author thought sex would make the story better.-RAH's later works-Ringworld series and some of Niven's other books-The last 2 books in the Dune series-Dean Ing's Systemic Shock seriesetc...Fortunately, there is also non-R/X rated science fiction out there that's good... Hal Clement, Frank Hogan, Asimov, David Drake (R for violence but no gratuitous sex), and I'll include David Weber & Keith Laumer even if they are a bit repetitive.

I took one whack at sci-fi, mainly to amuse myself whilst laid up with a smashed leg from work.

It was a dystopian fantasy about a world ruled by women, sort of Baum's OZ by way of Wells' Time Machine and Orwell's 1984. Inside the palace garden walls, women who have transformed themselves into supreme beings glide about in many-colored robes, while the dirty work of society is done by a repressed and drugged male proletariat who are milked for their DNA by robot prostitution and ruthlessly punished if they display any of the traditional masculine virtues....then a band of rebels arises....

It was mostly pretty bad, except for some inspired scenes such as the one that takes place when the rebels raid the "government seed locker".

To write fantasy, of course, one simply doubles or triples the number of protagonists and foils - for instance two nubile women suddenly try to impale themselves on the lead character's enormous organ, or four nominally different alpha males chase the female lead.

Oh yeah, and they do it on bearskin rugs on the castle floor instead of in an undersized bunk or atop the desk in the Captain's wardroom...

Seriously. Trying to think of a semi-believable sex scene in sci fi novel and I cannot, except for some of the stuff Heinlein wrote in his later stages - good with the alpha stuff inducing panty dropping, except that falls apart when he introduces the idea of multiple partners who hook up without jealously.

That Male author description is spot on for every Neal Stephenson book I've read. It ought to be embarrassing for someone so smart to reveal such a total lack of knowledge or understanding of relationships. It's nothing that ten articles from Roissy can't fix.

As a teen, a friend of mine gave me the entire Clan of the Cavebear series. Good lord.

One thing I really remember about the series was the regular, three page-long narratives of the protagonist's sexual experiences were nauseating.

The worst scene in the entire series was when she went off into a separate tent to have sex with the Black dude, while her boyfriend was in the other tent all grief stricken and emotionally upset that she had picked the other guy for the evening's pleasure.

Even as a young, blue pill addled adolescent, I remember thinking that the author was delusional. Such a scene in pre-historical times would have been settled by club and spear. She would not have had the choice, the winner of "let's you and him fight" would have taken her whether she wanted him or not.

Even as a young, blue pill addled adolescent, I remember thinking that the author was delusional. Such a scene in pre-historical times would have been settled by club and spear. She would not have had the choice, the winner of "let's you and him fight" would have taken her whether she wanted him or not.

The worst scene in the entire series was when she went off into a separate tent to have sex with the Black dude, while her boyfriend was in the other tent all grief stricken and emotionally upset that she had picked the other guy for the evening's pleasure.

Especially when the author had gone on and on and on and on about how only the blonde woman had a vagina big enough for the blond man's massive organ.

Then she's suddenly going to be satisfied with a smaller, darker ride?

Then she's suddenly going to be satisfied with a smaller, darker ride? Hah!

Of course, in hindsight, it's obvious that the entire series was basically one, long, drawn out sexual adventure fantasy of the author vicariously indulging in feeding her female imperative in a stone age setting.

Another hilarious narrative I recall was a part where her and blondie (IIRC his name was "Jondalar?) are travelling together, and they fall into a P-A "miscommunication" and he gets frustrated and resorts to jerking off...only to have her catch him after he finishes off the act. She's horrified at the "waste of seed." And he cries and breaks down and apologizes and promises to never do that again, but to let her know how much he desires her or some other crap like that. Even without any red pill awareness and still being an inexperienced virgin at that point, my 15 year old brain found that particular scene ludicrous.

That Male author description is spot on for every Neal Stephenson book I've read. It ought to be embarrassing for someone so smart to reveal such a total lack of knowledge or understanding of relationships.

I just consider it fantasy and don't worry about the lack of realism. The problem is when men don't realize that 2a is fantasy and not real life, and (perhaps more commonly) women not realizing that 2b is fantasy and not real life.

I write science fiction and fantasy. I write erotica. Occassionally, the two mix. Usually when that happens, the result is dreadful, I freely admit . . . but I'd like to think I do it pretty well. At the risk of hawking something that makes me virtually no money, I've got a serial in progress, an erotic Steam Punk novel called The Sky Panthers Argosy.

People have sex. People have sex for all sorts of perfectly reasonable and legitimate reasons. People have sex in burning airships and in creepy Tudor mansions and in Parisian whorehouses and occasionally in the bushes and once or twice in a bed. There is impaling. There is writhing. There are love interests and sex interests and the odd bit of harmless homoeroticism, just to keep things from getting repetitive.

But the point is well taken. If you want to write erotic science fiction, learn how to write both independently first, then combine them. Otherwise . . . ewww.

As a teen, a friend of mine gave me the entire Clan of the Cavebear series. Good lord.

Heh, I read that as a teen too. Pretty hot stuff when I was 13, and adults assumed they were just more of my nerd books. Strange thing was, the first book was pretty tame, with the sex described fairly quickly and clinically. The second and later books really went heavy on the romance porn, and the main character became a total Mary Sue.

In Stephen R. Donaldson's Covenant books, Covenant (overcome by the heightened sensations of the Land and the way it restores his lost potency) rapes a young girl who's smitten with him. She becomes devoted to him from then on, raising his child and waiting the rest of her life for him to return, eventually going insane. Pretty good example of an Alpha Widow.

Pretty hot stuff when I was 13, and adults assumed they were just more of my nerd books.

People have NO IDEA what they're doing when they give a book to a kid. My own mother bought me a copy of The Catswold Portal because I was into fantasy and the family cat liked me and there was a nifty picture of a cat on the cover.

Dear God, the only thing I remember about the book--other than werekitties--was the part where the eeeeeevil prince made the Determined Magical Warrior Werekitty True Queen of the Realm sleep with him in exchange for not putting all the war heroes back in prison. And it was kind of rapey, but not, because he put a love spell on her and she'd agreed and all but she didn't want to really and...and...

Bleah. I kept rooting for her to knife him in the nuts and run. According to the description, she couldn't miss.

But I did learn that good men never ever get in the way of the Determined Magical Warrior Heroine, unless she's about to be shot with arrows, because she's wayyyy more competent than he is. So not a total wash. *eyeroll*

It was then that I realized that in almost every movie I've seen in my life the girl made the first move...

Watch older movies. Consider:

Rule 2a - Double Indemnity: Barbara Stanwyck does pretty much everything the Hayes code would allow to imply she was suddenly impaling herself on Fred MacMurray. But of course it was to get him to kill her husband for he so she could pocket the insurance money. She cheats on him after he kills hubs for her, everybody ends up dead.

Rule 2b - Casablanca: Ilsa has to choose between Alpha Laslo and Sigma Rick. Ilsa claims she can't choose, but in reality she choose Rick. But Rick bundles her off with Laslo and goes looking for other girls on the girl tree with Louie Renault.

The scenery might have been potted plants and cardboard walls, but movies were more honest back them.

Neal Stephenson, Deborah Harkness, Patrick Rothfuss, Neal Gaiman...all of them portray intersexual relations in exactly the way vox describes. I think it's interesting that there's this movement afoot to insert feminist/leftist approved ideology into fantasy. If you're the kind of person who thinks contemporary politics is important enough to change your ART...you're a hack, pure and simple.

That Male author description is spot on for every Neal Stephenson book I've read. It ought to be embarrassing for someone so smart to reveal such a total lack of knowledge or understanding of relationships.

Anyhow, he's not as bad as most other modern writers. First, because he keeps romance/sex at a bearable level and second some characters have clear alpha/sigma traits. (Shaftoe brothers, William of Orange, Sokolov (well, ok, not much), etc.)

Neal Stephenson...all of them portray intersexual relations in exactly the way Vox describes.

Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about that near the end of Cryptonomicon

As some of the more interesting science fiction I've read is explicitly Christian (and does have relationships, but no sex in it), I'll leave it off here. Instead, I'll just mention John Ringo and his book Ghost.